Thursday, October 30, 2014

2014 midterm predictions: national

With no U.S. Senate or any competitive
U.S. House races on the Missouri ballot, the state is effectively
sitting out this national midterm election.

U.S. Senate

In the U.S. Senate, Democrats (plus two
Independents who caucus with them) currently control 55 of the 100
seats, and Vice-President Joe Biden's tie-breaking vote means Democrats have a 6-seat cushion in order to keep control of
the upper chamber. But the seats that are up this year are those that
were swept into Democrat hands in 2008, the anti-Bush Democratic wave
accompanying President Obama’s first election. Seven of those seats
are in states carried by Mitt Romney last election, and several more
Democrat seats in “purple” states are also in serious play. Only
three Republican seats are seriously contested.

According to Roll Call Politics (click SENATE'), two of
the Democrat seats opened by retirements, West Virginia and Montana,
are already deemed “Safe Republican.” Twelve additional
Democrat-held seats and just three Republican-held seats are
reasonably competitive (i.e., rated between “Toss-Up” and
“Favored,” but not “Safe”). Four of the Democrat-held seats
(the open seat in Michigan and incumbents in Minnesota, Oregon and
Virginia) are in the least competitive category, “Democrat
Favored,” but the other eight (in additional to the two already
regarded as lost) are in greater jeopardy. The open seat in South
Dakota is “Republican Favored” (i.e., as likely a Republican win
as the aforesaid four “Democrat Favored” seats are for Democrats). Sen. Mark
Pryor's seat in Arkansas “Leans Republican,” while the seats of
Democrat incumbents in Alaska, Colorado and Louisiana “Tilt
Republican.” That's a total of seven Democrat-held senate seats in
which Republicans are favored to some degree. In addition, Sen. Kay
Hagan's North Carolina seat and the open seat in Iowa are listed as
“Toss Ups,” while Sen. Jean Shaheen's shrinking lead in New
Hampshire is rated merely as “Tilts Democrat.”

The three vulnerable Republican seats
could partially offset those potential losses, but prospects there aren't
as good. Democrats aren't actually favored in any of them. Their best
chances, according to Roll Call, are Kansas (where Democrat hopes
hang on a left-leaning Independent) and the open seat in Georgia,
which are both rated as “Toss Up.” Mitch McConnell's vulnerable
Kentucky seat “Leans Republican.”

Largely confirming Roll Call's
projections is Nate Silver's incredibly accurate 538 model (click "ELECTIONS"). Silver is
more encouraging for Democrats in the four “Democrat Favored”
seats, to which he assigns double-digit Democrat leads and 96-99%
probability of winning. Silver currently gives Democrats an 83%
chance of holding New Hampshire and a 68% chance in North Carolina,
but eight Democrat-held seats (including Iowa, a Roll Call “Toss
Up”) and two of the three competitive Republican seats (including
Georgia, a Roll Call “Toss Up”) are all assigned a 65% or better
chance of a Republican win. The Independent in Kansas is the
Democrats' best hope of a takeback, but that's assigned a more modest
51% percent chance of success. Silver will modify these figures
several more times before the election as new data are received.

The Oracle sees the Republican trend
accelerating. When most folks go to bed on election night, the GOP
will have held Kentucky and Kansas, taken the Democrat open seats in
Montana, West Virginia, South Dakota and Iowa, and unseated Democrat
senators in Arkansas, Colorado, North Carolina and New Hampshire.
Many of the surviving Democrat senators will have won in closer
elections than expected. No candidate will have won the majority vote
necessary in Louisiana and Georgia. The following morning the seat in
late reporting Alaska will also have fallen to Republicans, giving
them 53 seats, pending the two runoffs. A win in the December
Louisiana runoff will give them 54 seats when the new Congress
convenes, and a win the Georgia runoff on January 6 will make the
final count 55, a 10-seat pickup.

U.S. House of Representatives

The House will be a slightly different
story. Republicans already won most of the districts they could
possibly win when they picked up 63 seats in the 2010 wave, and new
district lines locked most of them in. That success left House
Republicans susceptible to the same numbers game that haunts Senate
Democrats this year. Immediately after last year's government
shutdown, Democrats seemed poised to retake the House. But those
hopes were cut short when the botched Obamacare rollout shifted
voters' attention to GOP-friendly issues, where it has remained ever since. While both parties will
take seats from the other, Republicans will add to their majority.

The changes start with four congressmen
(three Democrats and one Republican) who won fluke elections in 2012
and decided to bail out on their parties and retire a winner.
According to Roll Call (click "HOUSE"), the three Democrat seats (NC-7, UT-4 and
lately even NY-21) aren't even listed among competitive districts
because they are “Safe,” although the Democrat is closing the gap
in the Utah district. CA-31, where Obama got 57% last election,
“leans Democratic.” The seats of three incumbents, one Republican
and two Democrats, “tilt” to the other party. Beyond those seats,
Roll Call currently labels 11 districts (9 Democrat and 2 Republican)
as “Toss Ups” and eight other districts (four in each party)
merely “tilting” in the current party's direction.

One example of how badly things are
going this year for House Democrats is NY-11, the only
Republican-held district in New York City, but which Obama won in
2012. Incumbent Rep. Michael Grimm (R) is under indictment, and video
shows him threatening to throw an inquiring reporter off a balcony.
This all happened after the filing deadline prevented Republicans
from fielding a different candidate. Grimm was written off as dead
meat. Today his district “tilts Republican!”

Another example: IL-12, the district
containing East St. Louis and other heavily Democratic St. Louis
suburbs, plus Cairo, IL, and lots of formerly Democratic rural turf
in between, represented by Rep. Bill Enyart (D), now “tilts
Republican” towards state rep. “Screamin'” Mike Bost. Some
Democrats may even be secretly clearing Enyart out of the way for
state rep Jerry Costello, Jr., namesake son of Enyart's predecessor,
in more Democrat-friendly 2016. That kind of political intrigue
happens all the time in Illinois.

While unpopularity of the Republican
House will temper the party's gains, I see them winning 13 new seats
and losing three, for a net GOP pickup of 10.